GIRL'S NIGHT!!!

Some of the women in my ward got together for a night out. It was the first after trying to get one put together for a while. We had so much fun!!!! Dinner at Cafe Rio, a stop at Barnes and Noble, Bath and Body Works, and then to Aleece's for chatting and dessert. We all laughed and laughed for hours.


Here we are: Me, Wendy, Aleece, Jesyca, Courtney, and Holly
(Kandis was there but we forgot to take a picture before she left.)

Here we are doing our secret girl's night hand sign.

Thanks for all the fun ladies! Next month we'll try to plan it further in advance. Oh, and if you want to come along and I don't have your email, give it to me and we'll include you in the planning- anyone is welcome! Except boys...

Photos For Phid

Jeff's brother, Phid, is in Romania and I know he'll be seeing this blog soon. HI PHID!!! So I decided to put up a bunch of unseen photos of the kids for him to see. Well, here they are:



This is Bear with his Grandpa. I just thought this was a cute moment.



Here is Nanos and his best friend. They were in their school play of Little Red Riding Hood as the wolf and the hunter.

Here they are on the back porch. I took this 8 times and not one of them has all four boys looking in the direction of the camera.

This is Jojy and his usual mess making and destruction. The sink is full of water, toilet paper and our toothbrushes in their cases. After he created this disgusting sink stew, he met an untimely demise...okay not really, but I was pretty angry. So was Jeff, since the sink wasn't holding all that water with the stopper, it was staying there because the pipe was completely pack with toilet paper. Sigh...

This is Nanos at his Pinewood Derby.

Here is Jojy looking simply sweet and innocent with his giant tart lolly.

Jojy thought that going down this slide backward was a great trick.

Here are the boys at Home Depot choosing the flowers they were going to plant for their grandmas for mother's day.

Here is my handsome Jeff helping Jojy plant one of Grandma's flowers.

Gabey Baby playing with big brother. Awwwww.


Here is my Bear at this Preschool graduation with Miss Tara. She was his very own teacher.

My little baby loved this swing! He squealed and laughed and clapped the whole time.

Which photos are your favorite?

(Just a reminder: if you'd like to leave a comment- I know I WOULD certainly like it- just click "comments" right under this and a comment window will open. Magic!)

Book Tag

1- Get the book nearest to you, or one that you are currently reading that is over 123 pages.
2-Go to page 123.
3-Find the 5th sentence.
4-Post the 5th sentence.
5- Tag 5 people.

I grabbed Nanos' book: The Kingdom Keepers, By: Ridley Pearson

"We don't see it, we don't feel it, but it's there."

(okay, so this isn't really the 5th sentence, but the 5th sentence was boring "In crossing back over we must take something of our DHI's with us". LAME.)

I tag: Audrey, Holly, Aubrey, Kandis, and Star.
THEN comment on this post to tell me you've done it, so I can check it out!

The Baby's Boofday

We are known in our house to use ridiculous baby-talk phrases when referring to our babies, but not in a baby-talk voice, thus making it sound even more bizarre if you were to hear us say it. For example: "Him have crambo eggth on he's boofday" (He had scrambled eggs on his birthday."). Just thought I should explain that so that when you see his cake it doesn't seem so weird. Hmm, maybe I just made us sound more weird....whatever.






He did have a rough start in life, but he overcame it quickly. Looking at this photo you'd never know he was so weak in the beginning. I love the way my babies look when they are sleeping. Maybe it's because they look peaceful and angelic...maybe it's because they aren't keeping me from eating or sleeping. Either way it's nice.

My mother has made each one of my boys a different suit for their blessing. The older boys had actual suits: grey with tails, navy pinstripe, brown collarless, but none had been blessed in white. I did that intentionally because I like to go against the average or common, but by the time number four came, it was normal to not bless them in white, so that's what I wanted. Note the paisley tie and actual leather belt. It's all in the details.

First smiles. He'd only been smiling for about two days when I took this photo. He's smiling at his Daddy, he still gets the best smiles from him.

I have some tiny little boys. They average out in size at about age 3 or 4, but they are very unfat as babies. I love me a fat baby though, so it was so exciting when this little guy started to get round cheeks and a belly. See? He WAS fat!

I'm a big fan of pacifiers because you can ween them from a binki, but you can't remove their thumbs if they prefer to suck them (well, not legally). Somehow, this last baby didn't get that concept. He LOVES those two middle fingers, and I have to admit, I think it's pretty cute. Well, until he's six and still has those two fingers in his mouth...ew.

This kid thinks the red light on my camera is so funny. So don't be fooled into thinking he's this happy all the time, it's just that when I focus the camera and that light comes on, he just lights up himself.
He also thought that the Christmas tree lights were funny. He'd always grin and coo when we'd lay him under a Christmas tree where he could look at the lights.

It's a good thing he isn't old enough to request a cake design, because I just didn't have the energy that day.

He was so happy to be allowed to eat something so sugary. Notice the condition of the cake in the first photo and then the next. He went to town on that thing. Later the frosting and cake were rubbed into his hair and flung all over the floor.

Sweet little birthday boy. These were taken on his birthday before he got a much needed haircut, but I love this little face. And I love those two little teeth. Happy Birthday Buddy.

This day a year ago

My fourth son was born in the early afternoon one year ago today. He was nearly 5 weeks early, and I knew immediately that things weren't okay. My third son spent two weeks in intensive care, so I was sadly familiar with what lay ahead. The nursery at the hospital tried to give him a chance to pull through the night on his own, but his lungs just weren't strong enough, so he was transferred to a NICU at a different hospital the next morning.

The first 48 hours are touchy and frightening. The baby was also heavily sedated so that the breathing machines could be the most effective. Can you believe that one little person needs so many machines to sustain his life? In the third picture he's with my brother, Rick, who we named our baby after.

After a few days he was taken off the respirator, and he graduated to an incubator and oxygen. Waiting for him to have his oxygen slowly turned down, or be strong enough to take a bottle or nurse, or for him to gain weight, seemed like an eternity. Holding him was tricky, too. Preemies can be distressed and can lose progress if they are moved or touched too much, so aside from the restrictions on how often we could touch him, holding him was difficult because of the IV's, monitor wires, and feeding tube.

After 12 days, we were able to take our healthy baby home. As difficult and draining as these NICU experiences are, we feel very fortunate because there were babies beside our son who had been in there for over four months! His three brothers were obviously pleased to have him home, too.

We love you little Shoog!

Princess Jojy

Jojy got soaking wet at Grandma and Grandpa's house Sunday night. He and his cousin, we'll call him Sqwunk, (they were born 22hours apart) discovered the spout at the bottom of the drinking fountain. Sigh. Jojy looked like he'd jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed. I had no change of clothes for him, and he insisted that he needed to be dressed, so I put this princess nightgown on him that belonged to one of the girl cousins. His choice, not mine.


Not kidding, I told him to flex his muscles and this is what he did...

Doesn't it go well with his tattoos and camo crocs?

Is his daddy proud of these photos? Not so much. Did he laugh his head off? You bet.